The Columbiad: A Poem Part 23

_High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;_

Book I. Line 333.

The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of difficult navigation.

No. 4.

_Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides, Maragnon leads his congregating tides;_

Book I. Line 365.

This river, from different circ.u.mstances, has obtained several different names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I choose to follow.

If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quant.i.ty of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has. .h.i.therto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow, the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.

No. 5.

_He saw Xaraycts diamond lanks unfold, And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold._

Book I. Line 435.

Some of the richest diamond mines are found on the banks of the lake Xaraya. The river Paraguay is remarkable for the quant.i.ties of gold dust found in its channel. The Rio de la Plata, properly so called, has its source in the mountains of Potosi; and it was probably from this circ.u.mstance that it received its name, which signifies River of Silver.

This river, after having joined the Paraguay, which is larger than itself, retains its own name till it reaches the sea. Near the mouth, it is one hundred and fifty miles wide; but in other respects it is far inferior to the Maragnon.

No. 6.

_Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll, His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;_

Book I. Line 449.

The great object of Columbus, in most of his voyages, was to discover a western pa.s.sage to India. He navigated the Gulph of Mexico with particular attention to this object, and was much disappointed in not finding a pa.s.s into the South Sea. The view he is here supposed to have of that ocean would therefore naturally recal his former desire of sailing to India.

No. 7.

_This idle frith must open soon to fame, Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,_

Book I. Line 491.

The straits of Magellan, so called from having been discovered by a Portuguese navigator of that name, who first attempted to sail round the world, and lost his life in the attempt.

No. 8.

_Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?

Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?_

Book I. Line 627.

Colonel Palfrey of Boston was an officer of distinction in the American army during the war of independence. Soon after the war he proposed to visit Europe, and embarked for England; but never more was heard of. The ship probably perished in the ice. His daughter, here alluded to, is now the wife of William Lee, American consul at Bordeaux.

No. 9.

_The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain, And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man._

Book I. Line 753.

The color of animals is acquired partly from the food they eat, thro successive generations, and partly from the objects with which they are usually surrounded. Dr. Darwin has a curious note on this subject, in which he remarks on the advantages that insects and other small animals derive from their color, as a means of rendering them invisible to their more powerful enemies; who thus find it difficult to distinguish them from other objects where they reside. Some animals which inhabit cold countries turn white in winter, when the earth is covered with snow; such as the s...o...b..rd of the Alps. Others in snowy regions are habitually white; such as the white bear of Russia.

No. 10.

_A different cast the glowing zone demands, In Paria's blooms, from Tombut's burning sands._

Book II. Line 97.

Paria is a fertile country near the river Orinoco; the only part of the continent of America that Columbus had seen. Tombut, in the same lat.i.tude, is the most sterile part of Africa. America embraces a greater compa.s.s of lat.i.tude by many degrees than the other continent; and yet its inhabitants present a much less variety in their physical and moral character. When shall we be able to account for this fact?

No. 11.

_Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise, And earth by culture warms the genial skies_,

Book II. Line 119.

Without entering into any discussion on the theory of heat and cold (a point not yet settled in our academies) I would just observe, in vindication of the expression in the text, that some solid matter, such for instance as the surface of the earth, seems absolutely necessary to the production of heat. At least it must be a matter more compact than that of the sun's rays; and perhaps its power of producing heat is in proportion to its solidity.

The warmth communicated to the atmosphere is doubtless produced by the combined causes of the earth and the sun; but the agency of the former is probably more powerful in this operation than that of the latter, and its presence more indispensable. For ma.s.ses of matter will produce heat by friction, without the aid of the sun; but no experiment has yet proved that the rays of the sun are capable of producing heat without the aid of other and more solid matter. The air is temperate in those cavities of the earth where the sun is the most effectually excluded; whereas the coldest regions yet known to us are the tops of the Andes, where the sun's rays have the most direct operation, being the most vertical and the least obstructed by vapors. Those regions are deprived of heat by being so far removed from the broad surface of the earth; a body that appears requisite to warm the surrounding atmosphere by its cooperation with the action of the sun.